2021 Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Zynerji]

Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley. He comments on which car he’d take for the remaining 5 races (and why).

Let's clear it up a bit.

"Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best BRITISH engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley"

Biased because he says that RB failed to capitalise on their car this year and saying "If you take the races where he (Max) hasn’t finished, it might not be a net 50 points compared to Lewis, but it’s certainly quite a few points that he’s given away"

Completely wrong. Max has not given away anything, points have been taken away from him in Baku, Hungary through no fault of his own and what have RB failed to capitalise on this year? They have been brilliant strategically.

If you are going to quote Rob, I will link this article https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ as my evidence for RB being the slight underdog so far.

What has Smedley's nationality got to do with anything? If he's a top engineer then he's a top engineer. Or is this one of those "he's British and therefore hates Max and RedBull" things?

And you think he's biased because you don't agree with his opinion. You like Anderson's opinion because it agrees with yours. It's not Smedley that's showing bias here.

Smedley has given his opinion based on what he has seen / heard. He's got a lot of experience in recent/current F1 and is involved in the data analysis for the Formula One Group so he's certainly got access to way more real data than any of us. But he was just giving his opinion on which car he would rather have at this point because he thinks it's the best car. Anderson thinks RedBull are underdogs and that suits your preference for Max being the great underdog champion taking his car to wins and titles it couldn't achieve otherwise because he's the best driver on the grid. That's cool, but don't accuse Smedley of being biased just because you don't like his opinion. That's not cool. And neither is accusing him of nationalist bias, either.

Now, now.... Who ever called Smedley a "top engineer"?? He lost at Ferrari, badly, then at Williams, badly.

I rate him slightly above Claire Williams.

[Just_a_fan]

It’s on him. Yeah right. That is why a penalty was applied.

OK, fair point. In which case Monza is on Max as he was given a penalty there. Which means Max did lose himself points, even if he lost many more from other incidents that were not his fault.

[Gillian]

Let's clear it up a bit.

"Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best BRITISH engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley"

Biased because he says that RB failed to capitalise on their car this year and saying "If you take the races where he (Max) hasn’t finished, it might not be a net 50 points compared to Lewis, but it’s certainly quite a few points that he’s given away"

Completely wrong. Max has not given away anything, points have been taken away from him in Baku, Hungary through no fault of his own and what have RB failed to capitalise on this year? They have been brilliant strategically.

If you are going to quote Rob, I will link this article https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ as my evidence for RB being the slight underdog so far.

What has Smedley's nationality got to do with anything? If he's a top engineer then he's a top engineer. Or is this one of those "he's British and therefore hates Max and RedBull" things?

And you think he's biased because you don't agree with his opinion. You like Anderson's opinion because it agrees with yours. It's not Smedley that's showing bias here.

Smedley has given his opinion based on what he has seen / heard. He's got a lot of experience in recent/current F1 and is involved in the data analysis for the Formula One Group so he's certainly got access to way more real data than any of us. But he was just giving his opinion on which car he would rather have at this point because he thinks it's the best car. Anderson thinks RedBull are underdogs and that suits your preference for Max being the great underdog champion taking his car to wins and titles it couldn't achieve otherwise because he's the best driver on the grid. That's cool, but don't accuse Smedley of being biased just because you don't like his opinion. That's not cool. And neither is accusing him of nationalist bias, either.

Now, now.... Who ever called Smedley a "top engineer"?? He lost at Ferrari, badly, then at Williams, badly.

I rate him slightly above Claire Williams.

That made me laugh just a little too hard.

[Dee]

It’s on him. Yeah right. That is why a penalty was applied.

OK, fair point. In which case Monza is on Max as he was given a penalty there. Which means Max did lose himself points, even if he lost many more from other incidents that were not his fault.

As Hamilton is his only rival this year and Max was behind Lewis at the time of the crash, please tell me how many points did Max lose for himself in Monza vs Lewis?

As Max was 11th and Lewis 10th (I think) when it happened, that crash was a -1 gain for Max...

[Sieper]

I have never said Monza was not on Max. In fact, Max was on Hamilton.

[Alexf1]

It’s on him. Yeah right. That is why a penalty was applied.

OK, fair point. In which case Monza is on Max as he was given a penalty there. Which means Max did lose himself points, even if he lost many more from other incidents that were not his fault.

As Hamilton is his only rival this year and Max was behind Lewis at the time of the crash, please tell me how many points did Max lose for himself in Monza vs Lewis?

As Max was 11th and Lewis 10th (I think) when it happened, that crash was a -1 gain for Max...

If he would have wouldn't have crashed when Ham turned in

[Alexf1]

OK, fair point. In which case Monza is on Max as he was given a penalty there. Which means Max did lose himself points, even if he lost many more from other incidents that were not his fault.

As Hamilton is his only rival this year and Max was behind Lewis at the time of the crash, please tell me how many points did Max lose for himself in Monza vs Lewis?

As Max was 11th and Lewis 10th (I think) when it happened, that crash was a -1 gain for Max...

If he would have been behind they wouldn't have crashed when Ham turned in

[zibby43]

Smedley - the same guy who's behind AWS tyre graphic. Case closed I think.

What’s that have to do with anything? I mean, Smedley didn’t invent AWS lol.

He’s merely using the AWS suite of products and trying to adopt a variety of F1-relevant data points for the broadcast (and the braking graphic, among others have always been quite good, no?).

It just seems like a silly and irrelevant attempt to discredit someone with more relevant F1 experience than everyone in this thread has combined.

On a side note, has there been a single F1 journalist, engineer, team personnel member, etc. that hasn’t said RB have had the best car on the balance of the season?

If so, please post the link and I’ll stand corrected.

[zibby43]

Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley. He comments on which car he’d take for the remaining 5 races (and why).

“If I was going to go for car, I would go for the Red Bull,” said Smedley. “I think it’s a slightly better car and it has been a better car all season.

I think that they’ve had the best car. I think they had a significantly better car at the start of the season, and they’ve probably, it’s fair to say, failed to capitalise on that.

But then, as the season’s gone on, they’ve still kept that that small advantage. It’s swung Mercedes’ way on occasions but, overall, they’ve still had the best car.”

Let's clear it up a bit.

"Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best BRITISH engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley"

Biased because he says that RB failed to capitalise on their car this year and saying "If you take the races where he (Max) hasn’t finished, it might not be a net 50 points compared to Lewis, but it’s certainly quite a few points that he’s given away"

Completely wrong. Max has not given away anything, points have been taken away from him in Baku, Hungary through no fault of his own and what have RB failed to capitalise on this year? They have been brilliant strategically.

If you are going to quote Rob, I will link this article https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ as my evidence for RB being the slight underdog so far.

This was an interesting choice by Gary.

If he would’ve chosen fastest Q3 lap, the results would be:

7-7 between Merc/RBR Honda. 7 fastest Q3 laps going to Max, 5 to Lewis, and 2 to Bottas.

But, with data, you can oftentimes manipulate it to literally whatever outcome/narrative you desire.

Top speed was irrelevant in this piece, IMO, as it’s always been a problem for RB because of the fact that they have the highest rake angle of any car on the grid, whereas Merc have the lowest.

[Sieper]

Two Mercedes drivers have taken fastest laps. Bottas was almost always close. The Mercedes is still the fastest imho and even if you don’t agree clearly it can never be the other extreme, that the RB is dominant. No matter how you want to manipulate data.

[Dee]

Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley. He comments on which car he’d take for the remaining 5 races (and why).

Let's clear it up a bit.

"Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best BRITISH engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley"

Biased because he says that RB failed to capitalise on their car this year and saying "If you take the races where he (Max) hasn’t finished, it might not be a net 50 points compared to Lewis, but it’s certainly quite a few points that he’s given away"

Completely wrong. Max has not given away anything, points have been taken away from him in Baku, Hungary through no fault of his own and what have RB failed to capitalise on this year? They have been brilliant strategically.

If you are going to quote Rob, I will link this article https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ as my evidence for RB being the slight underdog so far.

This was an interesting choice by Gary.

If he would’ve chosen fastest Q3 lap, the results would be:

7-7 between Merc/Honda. 7 fastest Q3 laps going to Max, 5 to Lewis, and 2 to Bottas.

But, with data, you can oftentimes manipulate it to literally whatever outcome/narrative you desire.

Top speed was irrelevant in this piece, IMO, as it’s always been a problem for RB because of the fact that they have the highest rake angle of any car on the grid, whereas Merc has the lowest.

"But, with data, you can oftentimes manipulate it to literally whatever outcome/narrative you desire"

So why do you trust Rob Smedley so implicity? You haven't seen his workings, you don't know what data he is using... yet you use his words which state that RB have had the better car all season. Maybe you might not use his quotes going forward until this is found out.

In your analysis you are taking 14 results and leaving out certain races, Gary is taking Q from every race so far (17) and using the fastest lap per team. That seems far more fair when judging what package is faster.

What I liked about Gary using top speed is that it nicely put to bed Mercedes claims about RB's flexi wing when RB were faster than Mercedes for the next five races after the TD was introduced.

Also, Gary is looking at trends from data and trends are what give you some idea about the quality of a car/team etc

[zibby43]

Two Mercedes drivers have taken fastest laps. Bottas was almost always close. The Mercedes is still the fastest imho and even if you don’t agree clearly it can never be the other extreme, that the RB is dominant. No matter how you want to manipulate data.

Neither car has been dominant on the balance of the season.

Usually, Merc drivers have bagged their fastest laps by virtue of being out of position with a slower race car. When you pit near the end of the race in clear air and low fuel, that doesn’t say much, IMHO.

[Dee]

Smedley - the same guy who's behind AWS tyre graphic. Case closed I think.

What’s that have to do with anything? I mean, Smedley didn’t invent AWS lol.

He’s merely using the AWS suite of products and trying to adopt a variety of F1-relevant data points for the broadcast (and the braking graphic, among others have always been quite good, no?).

It just seems like a silly and irrelevant attempt to discredit someone with more relevant F1 experience than everyone in this thread has combined.

On a side note, has there been a single F1 journalist, engineer, team personnel member, etc. that hasn’t said RB have had the best car on the balance of the season?

If so, please post the link and I’ll stand corrected.

I just did https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ but Gary did not want to state anything saying it was too close to call even though RB was slower than Mercedes in the two data points he analysed

Vey interesting that no articles have been written by F1 media, engineers, personnel etc in general highlighting Mercedes Q and Race Pace advantage over RB since Silverstone. To do this, they would also have to highlight Mercedes very poor strategy and mistakes since then but they have been avoiding that like the plague... I wonder why.

[zibby43]

Let's clear it up a bit.

"Below is an excerpt from an interview with one of the best BRITISH engineers in the sport in recent years, Rob Smedley"

Biased because he says that RB failed to capitalise on their car this year and saying "If you take the races where he (Max) hasn’t finished, it might not be a net 50 points compared to Lewis, but it’s certainly quite a few points that he’s given away"

Completely wrong. Max has not given away anything, points have been taken away from him in Baku, Hungary through no fault of his own and what have RB failed to capitalise on this year? They have been brilliant strategically.

If you are going to quote Rob, I will link this article https://the-race.com/formula-1/gary-and ... tle-fight/ as my evidence for RB being the slight underdog so far.

This was an interesting choice by Gary.

If he would’ve chosen fastest Q3 lap, the results would be:

7-7 between Merc/Honda. 7 fastest Q3 laps going to Max, 5 to Lewis, and 2 to Bottas.

But, with data, you can oftentimes manipulate it to literally whatever outcome/narrative you desire.

Top speed was irrelevant in this piece, IMO, as it’s always been a problem for RB because of the fact that they have the highest rake angle of any car on the grid, whereas Merc has the lowest.

"But, with data, you can oftentimes manipulate it to literally whatever outcome/narrative you desire"

So why do you trust Rob Smedley so implicity? You haven't seen his workings, you don't know what data he is using... yet you use his words which state that RB have had the better car all season. Maybe you might not use his quotes going forward until this is found out.

In your analysis are taking 14 results and leaving out certain races, Gary is taking Q from every race so far (17) and using the fastest lap per team. That seams far more fair when judging what package is faster.

What I liked about Gary using top speed is that it nicely put to bed Mercedes claims about RB's flexi wing when RB were faster than Mercedes for the next five races after the TD was introduced.

Also, Gary is looking at trends from data and trends are with give you some idea about the quality of a car/team etc

I’m leaving out 3 races, because as I pointed out, I used fastest Q3 lap, and LEC had 2 poles (Monaco and Baku), whereas NOR had 1 (Russia).

I personally think fastest Q3 lap is the better metric because at least teams are on the same tires and all using the same ERS deployment modes.

I never said I implicitly trusted Smedley. But I do value the opinion of an engineer who worked in the sport for 20 years for a variety of top teams, nearly won a championship in 2008, and has relevant experience in the hybrid era.

It’s just another data point in the discussion, and I consider him neutral as he’s no longer affiliated with any team and has more access to data than Gary does.

Maybe there are forum members here with resumes that are more impressive than Smedley’s, and if there are, I’d love to hear their thoughts. Would be awesome.

[Juzh]

Smedley - the same guy who's behind AWS tyre graphic. Case closed I think.

What’s that have to do with anything? I mean, Smedley didn’t invent AWS lol.

He’s merely using the AWS suite of products and trying to adopt a variety of F1-relevant data points for the broadcast (and the braking graphic, among others have always been quite good, no?).

It just seems like a silly and irrelevant attempt to discredit someone with more relevant F1 experience than everyone in this thread has combined.

On a side note, has there been a single F1 journalist, engineer, team personnel member, etc. that hasn’t said RB have had the best car on the balance of the season?

If so, please post the link and I’ll stand corrected.

Hahaha mate, AWS only sponsors this stupid tyre graphic crap, whereas data compilation and interpretation is solely down to FOM, and Smedley is the main guy behind it, just go look for some articles online how he praises that flawed system.

Some other graphics are cool, mainly those that do not rely on any interpretation of data (corner speed and time spent on brakes and throttle analysis comes to mind), but those can hardly be argued with.

I'd also agree with previous posters that blank statements such as "red bull didnt capitalise" and "red bull has the best car for entire season", while simultaneously ingoring all other factors (also already mentioned some posts back) are extremely one sided and silly views, completely contrary to what's been observed on track.